


Full Fathom Five

by LateStarter58



Series: Sarah's Smutty Notebook [18]
Category: Archipelago (2010)
Genre: F/M, Suicidal Thoughts, unprotected sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 20:49:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17066858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateStarter58/pseuds/LateStarter58
Summary: A beachcomber comes across something special in the dunes...





	Full Fathom Five

It was all somehow more bearable, sitting there. Away from everyone. Alone, with just the sand, the sea and his notebook. He felt for its comforting weight against his chest as he settled down into the natural seat he had found among the tufts of marram grass. He leaned his handsome, golden head back on his long neck and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, trying to clear his mind.

The sound of the wind and the waves filled his head, leaving little room for anything else. If he opened his eyes all he could see was the sky, or the Atlantic heaving and shifting, and the gulls skirting the white crests, almost riding them, like fairground attendants showing off to pretty girls. The steel-blue water seemed infinite and inviting. Just a few steps, he thought, just a few and it could all be over.

Unbidden, moments from the past week passed through his thoughts, each causing a flare of discomfort, a burning in his chest. He was weary of this helplessness. He looked at the ocean, heard its vastness crashing onto the beach and, as each wave drew back, it whispered to him… No more doubts. No more wresting with life, no more battling against the world. It could all end; all the pain, all the pointless confusing mess that he had become. Peace. It would be so easy.

Then in the corner of his eye he saw someone skirting the strand, walking slowly towards him. A beachcomber, by the look. Waxed cotton jacket, a hat; a canvas bag over the shoulder; eyes fixed on the shore. As the shape came nearer he could see it was a woman, with long thick red hair pulled into a ponytail beneath the battered panama she sported. Under her arm she carried a thin log, sea-bleached and shaped like a stretching snake. The edge of a pad peeked out of her bag.

An artist.

 

_She walked along the high tide mark, eyes flitting across the flotsam and jetsam, alert for something of interest: a piece of wood, burnished and polished into a natural sculpture; shells and stones turned by the waves to glittering jewels better than Fabergé’s; sea-glass, clouded by salt water and smoothed by years of surf. The ocean gave up its treasure readily here._

_A movement on the edge of her vision distracted her: a tall, lean shape; a man sitting down in a narrow notch between dunes, his face to the sea. Everything about him suggested sadness. She looked away – she did not need any part of that. Taking swift glances, only a little against against her will, her quick visual sense gleaned that the man was young, handsome to the point of beauty, and sadder than she had first imagined. The artist in her wanted to paint him, but her nurturing side wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be all right._

He had stopped looking at the sea. The woman captivated him as she strolled closer, occasionally stopping to crouch down and examine something among the uprooted seaweed and detritus at the high-tide line. Something about her – the way she moved, how she touched the things she picked up, how her face looked in the bright, unforgiving morning sun was rooting him back into the earth.

 

“Good morning. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Edward stood up awkwardly, his large feet sinking into the soft sand as his long legs spread beneath him, threatening to topple him over. He gained equilibrium and brushed himself down, feeling foolish and anxious, perhaps a little ashamed of his thoughts, but still drawn to this woman for some reason.

“It is beautiful.” He nodded at her bag. “Anything interesting?” He watched as she reached inside with one pale arm and brought out a beautiful green object. As he took it from her he realised it was a Coke bottle that had been transformed by the action of waves and seabed into a fabulous work of art. Edward turned it over in his hand, admiring the smooth feel of it against his palm, and the way the sunlight flickered and bounced against its cloudy curves.

“This is just…” His voice was soft, and he looked into her face intently as he searched for the word he needed. “… stunning.” He felt the blush rising up his face; because as his gaze reached her mouth he had felt such a rush of lust, so desperate a need for human contact it almost took his breath away. He dropped his eyes quickly, but not before she had seen the look in them. The woman took the bottle back from him, her fingers brushing his palm as she did so, and smiled brightly.

“I’m Jane.”

“Edward.” He hesitated, returning her smile shyly. He needed to keep her there, next to him. “Do you live on the island?”

“In the off-season, yes, I do. I look after a few holiday homes. It’s almost no work and leaves me time to paint and sculpt. The light here is…” She looked up at him, noticing how the sun was caressing his mess of golden curls while the light wind ruffled them gently, and the way the black and white wool of the scarf knotted around his neck contrasted with the ruddy shine of his cheeks. He was waiting patiently for her to finish her sentence, noting how her eyes roved over him. “It’s so clean. So… _pure,_ I suppose you could call it.”

Edward watched, waiting for a cue from her. As so often in his life, he did not know how to express what he wanted and was totally clueless about the other person’s wishes. His natural courtesy kicked in suddenly.

“What else have you found?”

Jane indicated they should sit so she could unpack her bag to show him her haul. There was only just enough space for them both in Edward’s little sandy armchair, and he felt his pulse speeding up as their bodies rubbed against one another. She laid out the contents. Various shells came first, some quite exotic looking, some ground down and broken so just the inner skeleton was left in all its delicate beauty. She had picked up some long blades of kelp that she intended to dry out and paint. Tens of feathers, mainly white, and other examples of glass and stones; everything had been altered by the sea. She held up a small piece of metal encrusted with barnacles.

“When I do this I always have that song from _The Tempest_ in my head – we were taught it at school – you know the one?” Edward nodded cautiously. He thought he did. “ _Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea change_ -“

“… _into something rich and strange_ … Yes!”

For Edward, as Jane looked up into his face, a smile lighting up her face, the world seemed to stop turning. He could hear the waves brushing onto the beach; waxing and waning like the respiration of some great creature. He could feel the breeze kissing his forehead, and hear the distant cries of gulls and oystercatchers. But all he could see were her soft pink lips, the shape of her jaw, the freckles dusting over her nose; all he could smell was the damp sourness of her old jacket tempered by a flowery fragrance underneath.

She watched him breathing rapidly, his gaze flitting over her face, his thin lips pressed together. She saw the struggle inside him. Unconsciously, she lifted a hand to stroke the sharp plane of his cheekbone and feel the soft-rough stubble on his cheek. He was lovely: beautiful, gentle, sensitive; he seemed somehow lost.

Later, back at the house, he wondered where that courage came from, because as Jane touched his face tenderly he suddenly knew he had to kiss her, so he did.

Heat flared between them as their mouths met; hot and burning, making them forget the cool wind and the place and anything except each other and their bodies and the need they shared. Her thick coat made a good bed and the dunes gave them shelter. No more words now, just pulling at clothes and kissing, biting, licking. His skin still golden from the summer sun, hers pale like ivory. It was too cold to undress fully, so they made do with hands inside clothing, pressing and squeezing warm skin. Edward moaned when Jane pinched his nipples as he slid his large hands inside the back of her jeans. She whimpered as he caressed the firm flesh there and she pressed against his hardening arousal, needing friction, something; needing him.

He paused, panting, eyes staring. “I don’t, we should-“

“Shhhh.” Jane lay back and pulled him to her by his belt, her nimble fingers undoing the zip on his cords quickly. He gasped as her cool hands slipped inside his boxers and took hold of him, stroking and pulling slightly, transforming his moans into near-screams. He lost what remained of his veneer of civilisation then, tugging her jeans down, knickers too, at such a speed that they left a friction burn she found the next day. His hand went to her sex and found her wet, so wet and ready he felt light-headed and then he was there, his mouth on her neck and feeling the heat of her so close to him he just had to roll his hips.

“Yesssss. Oh yes, Edward.” He slid into her welcoming body, so easily, the slick velvety warmth of her dragging him in and in until he could go no further. His lips found hers, sucking and nibbling, his tongue exploring, wanting to learn all of her in moments. He had never done this, never allowed himself to follow so readily his instincts and desires and it felt like being in a foreign country. Of their own accord, his hips began to move, slowly pulling out then thrusting back in, making Jane clutch at him desperately. She slipped her hands back inside his t-shirt, feeling how his muscles flexed and tightened with each movement of him against her.

Jane could feel his power: untapped, unexplored. He had such a gentle strength and beauty. She had no idea how this had happened, why it was happening, but she gloried in it, living in the moment, knowing it would be a fleeting one.

The need was building in them both. Edward lifted himself up on his arms, not changing his rhythm, to look at her face intently as he felt her body reacting to him. She gazed back, not averting her eyes, meeting his movements with her own, lifting her head to nip at his mouth and jaw. He leaned back in, his arms now holding her tightly as he increased his pace, his mouth sucking on hers, then on her neck and collarbone. Breathing became shorter, moans louder and then her orgasm burst through her like a firework, shattering. Edward whimpered as her body clutched at him, then he followed her with a shout, pushing as deep as he could, again and again until he was still.

Above them clouds scudded across the sky, gulls floated on the wind. Jane’s vision focussed in on a head of marram, dancing and waving to the ocean. His weight on her was warm and comforting. She felt the light sting of sand blowing on her cheek. Edward’s breathing was returning to normal, and she felt him softening inside her. A pang of regret hit her heart as he withdrew. He leaned in and kissed her tenderly on the mouth.

Jane caught his head, dug her fingers into his cloud of curls. “Thank you.”

He looked stunned, then a soft, sweet smile broke across his face like a sunrise. “No, thank _you.”_

 

 

**_Full fathom five thy father lies;_ **

**_Of his bones are coral made;_ **

**_Those are pearls that were his eyes:_ **

**_Nothing of him that doth fade,_ **

**_But doth suffer a sea-change_ **

**_Into something rich and strange._ **

**_William Shakespeare: The Tempest_ **


End file.
